2026 Impact NextGen Honoree: Cody Payne

CODY PAYNE
Manager | AGE: 35
All For One MGMT

RED CLAY SLAYS
Headlining: MSG, Red Rocks, TD Garden, Merriweather Post; high profile plays at Stagecoach, Bourbon and Beyond.

The Red Clay Strays may have toiled on the road for almost a decade before hitting worldwide acclaim – thanks to their raucous energy, stage presence and impassioned performances – grinding it out on the road, doing covers and hoping to make enough to keep tour bus “The Breeze” on the road, but that doesn’t mean the last couple of years haven’t been a whirlwind.

“They are the hardest-working band in the industry, and after three years of sold-out tours in the States and abroad, it was well deserved and perfectly timed with (lead singer) Brandon having his first child,” says manager Cody Payne.

He checked in with Pollstar as the band was set to headline Madison Square Garden following other high-profile gigs at Red Rocks, TD Garden, Merriweather Post Pavilion along with festival appearances at Stagecoach, Bourbon and Beyond and others, not to mention international touring.

Family is everything to Payne, and he fully believes in trying to keep touring life as close to home as possible.
“A personal highlight for me was taking my young family (wife, 1-year-old and 3-year-old) on the ‘Get Right EU Tour,’” says Payne.

He’s an Alabamian, like the Red Clay Strays, who unknowingly stumbled on the group at a Nashville bar gig and knew right away he would be devoting all efforts to the band, including leaving the venerable Conway Entertainment Group to start his own All For One MGMT.

“My theory for longevity is that it is very important for the band to have their families around as much as possible and my family has the privilege of setting that example for how it can be done,” he says. “Those men are my kids’ closest uncles. We were in Paris for Halloween and they all went through the trouble of setting up trick-or-treating in every green room backstage so my daughter could dress up and actually trick-or-treat. That’s family, and it’s the only thing I really find of value in life.”

Shouting out Tony Conway for inspiring his love for the live music business, Payne gives the Red Clay Strays all credit for driving him daily.

“Managing that band is what I am called to do, and it’s given me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore every single aspect of it, not just booking the performance but working through all of the budgeting, the production (everyone that can should see the production on the ‘Grateful Tour’),” he says. “It’s crazy to see how far it’s all come.”